It's beginning to look a bit like Christmas!

I knitted up the better part of an entire heel flap on November Mystery Sock last night while waiting for LittleBit to call. I had on “The Devil Wears Prada” as background noise. I have tried repeatedly to listen to the new KnitPicks podcast, and no matter how many times I click on the link for Episode 28, it keeps giving me Episode 27 with Crazy Aunt Purl. Which is lively and entertaining, but I’ve already enjoyed it.

I also tried listening to the LibriVox recording of “A Modest Proposal”; the recorded volume is too low to be heard if I am sitting over on the couch with my legs up. I can type away at the computer half the day, and my ankles will stay more or less anklish in size. But let me sit here with knitting in hand, and they will pout and blow up. So sitting here by the speakers, where I can hear the recording just fine, is unfortunately not an option. [I neither own nor desire an MP3 player; I would rather spend that money on yarn or books, and then there is that whole matter of earphones, which give me the willies.]

The slip stitch pattern for the heel flaps on the November Mystery Socks is coming along nicely. And now I understand how 42 rows of heel flap does not necessarily equal miles and miles of knitting. I am getting a fabric that is dense – without being thick – and supremely supple. I think it will do very well for the heel.

I was so pleased at finding and arranging my Nativity yesterday afternoon, that I also hung my jingle bell wreath on the front door. It took me awhile to adjust the length of the clear plastic hook so that the brass door knocker was accessible and apartment number unobscured. I managed to do so without letting Charlie, a semi-stray cat whose owner used to live in the complex, into our apartment. One of the neighbors keeps him fed, and he gets enough petting from all the kids who live around here that he is still tame and happy. Or as happy as a cat is ever likely to be.

Today, perhaps, I will get the big wreaths hung in our bedroom windows and the Moosletoe holder up, and I might even find the remaining piece of the Nativity, an angular arch that represents the stable. I know it got moved, because I remember seeing it when the boxes were getting shuffled and repacked. If I am luckier than I deserve, it will be in the same tall tub as the four wreaths.

One wreath used to go in our living room window at the old apartment, another in the dining room window, with one for each bedroom window. They are almost Spartan in their simplicity, which I know is not what you’ve come to expect from me. Here, the living room faces our patio door, which is locked and braced and perpetually covered by vertical blinds. I have two W-I-D-E bedroom windows, and LittleBit has one narrow one. I’m not sure what to do with the fourth wreath; I sure don’t want it to feel lonely and abandoned, sitting in the storage tub all by itself for the holidays.

Maybe I should get a couple more and hang the three of them from the track for the vertical blinds? And another one for the smaller patio door in the kitchen? Or maybe I should just wait patiently [you may stop snickering *right now*] until I buy my house and sort out the numbers then. Buying more wreaths now would also involve trying to match the indoor/outdoor ribbon that I hang them from, and the decorative bows, and buying another tall tub for storage.

And since I am trying to do as little unpacking/repacking as possible, for however long I live here, I think that would be counterproductive. And possibly exhausting; I would have to go Very Near the Mall to get the ribbons, and I don’t remember where I bought the wreaths. And they would simply have to match the others.

I am ordinarily all about eclecticism in my decorating, but not on this one point. Let each snowflake be unique and glorious; let the dishes not match; but if I have four or seven evergreen wreaths at my windows, send in the clones [with apologies to Mr. Sondheim and Judy Collins].

I have been ruminating and typing for the better part of an hour. Time, I think, for some breakfast. Because we all know that typing really burns up the virgin eggnog!